Networking with your customers, vendors, and local business groups is a great way to grow your business. At networking events, you hand out business cards and tell everyone what you do for a living, where you do it, and how they can find you if they need your services. At it's simplest definition, using Schema.org markup for local business is like handing Google a business card with your standard information listed front and center.

This article is the first in a series about Schema and rich snippets and how they can be used to help your local business.

What is Schema?

Schema.org is a semantic vocabulary written and standardized by a collaborative team from Google, Bing and Yahoo. They came together and said, "If you put this piece of code around your phone number, for example, all three of our search engines will unequivocally recognize it as a phone number."

Yahoo and Bing have since combined forces, and Yahoo now displays search results from Bing, but the acceptance of this web language is ongoing and it likely to become more helpful in the future. The community that wrote and maintains the Schema.org vocabulary continues to expand its reach and understanding and more types of information can be presented to the search engines via this type of structured mark-up all the time.

How Do I Implement My Virtual Business Card?

If you can put your local address and phone number on a page of your website, chances are you can also include the Schema.org markup with that data. The fictitious floral shop noted below shows the name, address and phone (NAP) before markup and after, so you can see the difference. You're basically adding labels to the information via code.

If you use an easy-to-edit website management system like WordPress, you can add your Schema-encoded NAP to your footer or sidebar widget. We recommend displaying this marked-up information on all pages of your website.

Without Schema:
Firefly Floral Creations
At Firefly Floral Creations, our goal is to provide the best arrangements and blossoms to make your special day, be it a wedding or anniversary party!
159 Serenity Lane
Wash, CO 12345 USA

The schema code for a local business is pretty standard, so you can simply use the example above by substituting your business' information in the appropriate spots. There are also variations by industry and type of business that can be helpful. You can research your own niche at Schema.org, or use a code building tool like Schema-Creator.org.

Testing Your Schema Mark Up

Google provides us with a free tool to use for testing our schema markup. After implementing your schema virtual business card on your pages, use this Structured Data Testing Tool to make sure Google and Bing can properly understand what you are telling them.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this series - Schema.org Markup for Lawyers and Legal Professionals.

About Carrie Hill

Carrie Hill is the co-founder of IgnitorDigital.com. Her background in online marketing started 8 years ago in a small agency focused on the hospitality industry. Since then Carrie has become an expert on technical SEO and website structure issues, as well as an industry speaker on the Semantic web and how small business can utilize it efficiently. You can follow Carrie on Twitter and Google+.

Carrie, Thanks for your mail. I have read few article that if are using the schema in website then it also help in local keywords ranking, Google hummingbird also help extra advantage if we used the schema.

Seems like nothing tells Google more about your business then your own website. Especially after you claim your Google+ account. I’ve heard many people get there own address wrong so checking it with USPS can be a good idea before building listings with wrong information.

I would never say that Schema helps with ranking – but in a world where what Google knows about your website matters – making sure they have a VERY CLEAR idea about the subject of your site, where you are, how to call or find your business, and your operating area can only do good things for you.

Does it matter to the machines whether the schema.org microdata is coded into the footer or the body of your content? Other than the fact that the footer would put it on every page, is the structured data processed differently by Google when it is in the of your content?

I would put it on every page of my site – so the footer is a good spot unless you want people to see your address and find you – then making the location/address prominent above the fold is a good idea!

It should read….Other than the fact that the footer would put it (the markup) on every page, is the structured data processed differently by Google when it is in the Body of your content, (and not the footer).

@Mike A few months ago in an office hour hangout, I asked John Mueller if it was ok to put markup in the footer, and he said something like….yea, that’s ok, but right now we are focused on microdata in the body. So, his answer left me wondering.

I can’t remember which hangout , but perhaps I just ask the Q again next time I go.

@Leeza
Mark up comes in all forms so for sure things like review, author and publisher need to be in the body. I was thinking you were referring to location markup only which I don’t think matters.
But as far as the others I would suggest that they probably do some more than others. IE reviews must be in page. Publisher maybe not so much so.

Implicit in your question is whether you will rank better across a different geography…. you need to understand that Schema is not a ranking factor but a clarity factor for the search engines. It is semantic markup that better helps them understand what you are and how you should be classified.

Hi s.k. Well, there are a couple of different ways in which you can handle that, depending upon how the information on the page is structured. If you want to specify that the local business is a retail outlet of a large organization, you can use the “branchOf” property, like this:

Name of Local Retail Outlet

Name of Organization

Or if you want to specify that the organization has a local retail outlet, you can use the “subOrganization” property, like this:

Name of Organization

Name of Local Retail Outlet

And of course, you’ll want to select the most appropriate schema type to use for the local business, whether it’s Store, DepartmentStore, LocalBusiness, etc.

If I have a page that lists all state locations with address and phone number, should I include local business schema markup on these state level directory pages too? Or, am I better to only use local schema on the landing page of each individual location?

@Kristin
Those are the most important pages on which to use Schema. Schema is a “clarity signal” to google so that they can keep nap straight. When there is more than one nap on a page there is always the danger that Google will confuse one with the other.